Superpowers (9 page)

THURSDAY

Harriet still couldn't stand whiskey. Sometimes she woke with the smell in her nostrils, and when that happened it was a sure bet she wasn't going to fall asleep again; memory tied her stomach up in knots and set a dark weight on her forehead.

The boys' locker room at the SERF wasn't much different from the girls'. There was no tampon dispenser, and she was fairly certain there weren't as many mirrors, but otherwise it was much the same. Except that to her new eyes it looked completely different. She was growing accustomed to walking in two dimensions, although she still had to move slowly when she was invisible. But she didn't think she would ever be used to the way that colors jumped out at her: the powdery blue of the lockers, the tobacco-stain yellow of the wall tiles, the honey blond of the benches. Not to mention the pinks, browns, and yellows of naked male skin—but that wasn't why she was here.

The benches at Madison South High School had been white wood-grained plastic. These benches were real wood, smooth, varnished. They looked comfortable.

Xavier had his back to her. He was knotted with muscle; there was no fat on him that she could see. She wondered if he was using steroids. Maybe he had been using them then. He had a tattoo now, a tiger on his left bicep. It hadn't been there four years ago.

She decided he wasn't using steroids. He was smart, she knew that. They hadn't been strangers in high school, not like they were now. They had been in debate together. Xavier was a good speaker; he had a musical voice, not too deep, but smooth, precise. He made you forget you were in a debate, forget to rebut his points, forget to do anything but listen. Mrs. Molina had loved him. But it wasn't his debating skills that had got him a full-ride scholarship. Universities didn't recruit debaters like they did football players.

It didn't smell like a locker room in here, not really. There was sweat, but no lingering, stale odor of young bodies. It wasn't right. She knew it was four years later and a different place, but it wasn't right.

Whiskey, and a smooth, musical voice, and maybe a little bit of attraction, those were the things that had gotten her into trouble. She remembered the feel of the bench against her back, cool at first and then warm from her heat, damp with her sweat; it was the most vivid sensation she could recapture. She didn't remember penetration, not really. She hadn't felt the pain until the next morning, along with the hangover.

X, they called him. His real name was Xavier Tyler, but everyone called him X. He encouraged it. It was a street name for a boy who'd grown up far from the streets. His father was a vice president at Rayovac, and his mother worked at University Hospital. Whatever he wanted, he got.

She wondered how tall he was now. Six-foot-four? He looked bigger to her, but maybe that was her new eyes, or maybe it was the shadow he had cast these four years.

He had waved the bottle at her after taking a swig, mischief but not menace in his eyes. When she had declined, he made her an offer. If she drank, he would answer her questions. It was an important story, the last game before the playoffs, and she needed a quote from the star senior running back. She was the first junior to be editor of the Madison South newspaper, and she didn't feel like she'd proved herself yet. She took the drink.

He was almost dressed now. His clothes fit like a second skin. Sometimes in class she heard girls talking about him, wondering who he was dating. Girls who talked about total yards and the NFL draft as if they were ESPN commentators. He was big news. His name had appeared in nearly every edition of
The Campus Voice
since she had joined the staff, He was handsome, articulate. His grades were good.

It had turned into a game. One drink, one question. Sometimes she thought back on the Harriet Bishop of four years ago and hated her for her naivete. Her questions had been good ones, at first. She was determined to do a good job. Of course he would answer her questions. Why didn't she have a seat? He was just going to celebrate a little—he put his finger to his lips and pulled the bottle of Jack Daniel's from his bag.

She had made up his quotes later. She even felt guilty about it. She didn't make him sound stupid, or write about what had happened, and he never said a word to her about putting words in his mouth. They hadn't spoken since that night.

Four years ago he'd had a slightly wild reddish brown Afro, but now he kept it shaved close to the scalp. Clean-cut and well behaved. Team captain and spokesman. Insistent upon graduating before submitting to the draft. Model citizen.

She knew she had given him an opening when, near the end of her list of questions, she had veered off the script. Instead of asking him about potential playoff rivals she had asked him if he had a girlfriend. She took a drink to cover her discomfort; he had smiled and accepted the bottle from her. She didn't even remember his answer. She remembered him unzipping his pants and realizing that they were alone in the locker room. She remembered him sticking his crotch in her face, and she remembered shaking her head, telling him no. Somehow, he had made the alternative seem like a bargain, like it was an either/or situation and not one she could opt out of entirely. He had let her take off her own pants, and she remembered thinking, ludicrously, that it was nice of him.

Now he shut his locker, then swore and started to twirl the dial of the combination lock. Almost every day in the last two weeks he had done this. He always forgot something, usually his sunglasses, or one of the books he carried under his arm.
The Souls of Black Folk,
or
The Autobiography of Malcolm X,
or
Go Tell It on the Mountain.
She was sure he had read them, and that he would happily share his opinions of each. He wasn't stupid, not at all.

She had never told her father; she had never told anyone. It wasn't that she blamed herself. It was that she didn't want it to define her. People she had never met would think of her as That Girl Who Was Raped. The victim. Some of them would think she was a liar. Her father—her father might kill Xavier. He was not a violent man, but it would have cut him deeply, and she did not know what he might be capable of doing.

Xavier—she would not call him X, because she would not let him pretend he was someone else—Xavier opened his locker and pulled out a Ralph Ellison book. He shut the locker and grabbed his bag.

She spat and struck him just on the neck. Then she walked out, hearing him swear behind her. She looked in the mirrors as she passed, but she didn't see her reflection. It was like she wasn't even there.

FRIDAY

Alice arrived at the same time she always did—ten minutes early. Fern let her in.

"Good morning, Alice," she said.

"Good morning, Mrs. Robinson." Fern had tried to get Alice to call her by her first name, but Alice seemed determined to keep some distance. She wasn't cold with Zeke, but with the rest of them she was always businesslike, almost formal. Fern thought she understood. It had to be hard to lose a patient every few months. Growing close to the family would only make it harder.

"He's still asleep." Fern held the door while Alice brought her bag in. "Would you like a cup of coffee?"

"Oh, that's not necessary," Alice said.

"It's no problem," Fern said.

"Black, then. And thank you." Alice hung her jacket on one of the hooks near the door. It was a cool, overcast morning, but Fern could tell that the sun would burn the clouds off in an hour or so and the day would be a hot one.

"I'll bring it in to you." Fern went to the kitchen before Alice could parry her offer with another polite protestation. Offered a drink, dessert, or a second helping, most midwesterners would respond "Oh, I shouldn't" or "No, really, I'm fine." Fern's mother, a transplanted Brit, had once brought a dinner party to a halt by taking the ritual protestations at face value and refusing to serve any more food or drinks. After twenty minutes Fern's father had taken mercy upon the squirming guests and asked them if they cared for another helping.

Fern brought the coffee to Zeke's room, where Alice was just waking him up. She set the coffee on the dresser and went to Zeke's side. He didn't speak, just squeezed her hand when she took his. She sat beside him on the bed and ran her fingers over his hair while Alice took his blood pressure and his temperature. Fern tried to pretend Alice wasn't there, that it was just Zeke and her there together, that Zeke wasn't dying and her heart wasn't breaking.

When it was time for Zeke's sponge bath Fern kissed him on the forehead and told him she loved him and smiled to show him he didn't need to exert himself to answer her.

She made an early lunch for the Carlson twins. They'd been out spraying the corn all morning, and they came back hungry. Fern watched them eat the beef stew, remembering days when Zeke came in with an appetite for more than just lunch. More than once he'd left the house just moments before the bus dropped off one of the kids, tucking in his shirt and stealing a last kiss as he ran out the door.

After the Carlson boys went back to the fields, Fern started on the bathroom. At first she was just going to clean the tiles in the shower, but she found herself washing the rugs and scouring the sink and scrubbing between the floor tiles with an old toothbrush. Morty found her there a little before noon.

"Ma?" He stood in the doorway, frowning down at her.

"Hi, Morty." Fern would never get used to calling him Jack. "I'm cleaning the bathroom."

"I see that. How is he?"

She waved toward the room at the end of the hall. "Alice is with him."

"She said he's asleep."

"Well, then he's all right, I guess." It was an ugly thought, but sleep seemed to be the only time Zeke was all right. When he was asleep he wasn't in pain and he didn't know he was dying.

"My roommates and I were going to have a picnic over by the old tree house," Morty said. "Is that OK?"

"As long as you don't go up in it," Fern said. "The wood's rotted through. Which reminds me, are you ever going to take down that garage?"

"Yes," he said. He seemed jittery, like he'd been drinking a lot of coffee. "But not today, OK?"

"Seems to me I've heard that quite a few times."

"I'll do it, don't worry. Next week. I'll see you in a few hours."

"OK. Have fun."

After she polished the mirror and the doorknobs and put out fresh towels and hung the rugs out to dry, she started on the kitchen. She had finished the oven when Quinn called.

"How is he?" she asked.

"He's fine. Alice is here," Fern said, not because it was unusual—Alice came every weekday—but because there wasn't much else to say. "How are you?"

"Tired. Becky's still got the flu. None of us have slept in three nights."

"Do you want me to ask Grace if she'll drive up for the weekend and watch her?"

"Oh, Mom, I'd love that, but I can't leave her when she's sick. Grace can stay the weekend if she wants, though. We could rent some movies." There was a pause, and Fern could almost hear Quinn thinking. I
should invite Mom. But who would watch Dad then? Change the subject.
"Is it hot there? It's scorching here."

Fern hadn't looked out a window in hours. Thank God for central air—the thermometer on the back porch read 93, and she knew it was humid. She hoped Morty and his friends were staying out of the sun. She didn't even want to go out to take the bathroom rugs off the line. She was like her mother in that respect; the mid-western summers made her wilt, while she drew strength from the winters. Her father, on the other hand, had never stopped moving, in warm weather or cold.

She half-listened to Quinn while she readied a roast beef for dinner. Maybe Morty and his friends would stay. If they didn't, she'd have sandwiches for the Carlson twins' lunches through the next week.

Quinn talked about preschool and Randy's boss and some movie they'd rented last weekend. Fern let her talk. It did her good—that was Quinn, always had been, chatting to fill the silence, talking when she was nervous, when she was angry, when she was happy. Fern had never been one for talking much. The funny thing was that once she and Zeke were together she had become the talkative one, because Zeke never spoke at all unless he had something to say. Probably it was their fault that Quinn was such a talker, she supposed. She just couldn't stand the quiet around the house when she was growing up.

After a while Quinn ran out of steam, and Fern said good-bye, telling her she'd talk to Grace. She went to check on Zeke.

He and Alice were watching
Leave It to Beaver.
"How are you two doing?" she asked.

"We're doing well," Alice said. "I was just about to come and make up something for Zeke's lunch."

"Oh, I can do that," Fern said. "You know, it's after two. If you wanted to leave a little bit early today, that would be fine with me."

Alice looked at her watch. "Hm. I wouldn't mind, actually. I could stay late on Monday if you like."

"I don't think that's necessary," Fern said. "Do you, honey?"

Zeke took a slow breath and raised his head to shake it side to side.

Alice hesitated, and for the second time that day Fern was sure she knew what someone was thinking.
He's
not well. But he'll be no better if I stay.

Alice stood. "I'll need to check your blood pressure and temperature again, Zeke. Then I'll leave the two of you alone."

Grace arrived as Alice was leaving. She beeped her horn at Alice as she left and parked her rusting Honda in the spot Alice's Taurus had just vacated.

"Hey, Mom," Grace said, bouncing up the steps to where Fern stood in the doorway. Sweat trickled down Fern's back, but the heat seemed to have no effect on Grace. It wasn't until she was inside that she seemed to lose all her energy. She sprawled out on the couch and groaned.

"I hate work," she said.

"You only work three days a week." Fern moved to the kitchen, where the potatoes she was planning to mash were just beginning to boil. "It's not going to get any easier," she said.

"It will after I'm a famous singer," Grace said. "Where's Jack? I saw his truck out there."

"He and his roommates are having a picnic down by the old tree house."

"Was Charlie with him?"

"I suppose." Grace had a crush on Charlie Frost, but Fern didn't worry about it. Charlie was a nice boy, nice enough that she was sure he wouldn't take advantage of a seventeen-year-old girl.

"Quinn called," Fern said, to change the subject. "She was wondering if you wanted to go up for the weekend."

"Oh, Mom. I don't want to drive all the way to Appleton."

"Not even to see your niece?"

"I don't know. I'm going to go say hi to Jack."

"And Charlie? Don't you want to shower and change first? Maybe get your hair done?"

"Very funny, Mom." Grace came into the kitchen and stood with arms folded in the doorway. "How is he?"

Fern shrugged. "He's no better and no worse."

"Should I go say hi to him?"

"That's up to you, honey."

"But I don't want to tire him out."

Fern knew that Grace knew that there was very little that didn't tire Zeke out. Grace wanted to be let off the hook for a little while, to not think about her father dying for an hour or so.

"Go see Morty," Fern said. "You can say hi to your father when you get back."

"I can do it now, if you think I should."

"Let him rest now. We'll watch a little TV together later."

"OK, Mom. I love you, Mom."

"I love you too, Grace."

Grace had been Fern's grandmother's name, a woman she had never met who looked very severe and humorless in photographs, except for one in which she was hiking the hem of her dress up above her knee and laughing open-mouthed. "That picture was taken before the Blitz," Fern's mother had told her, and as a little girl Fern had always wondered if the bombs over London had changed everyone that way, if the city had been a place filled with laughing and dancing people one day, and become somber and dark the next. She wondered the same thing about her own Grace. When Zeke was finally too tired to keep fighting, would Grace lose the light that she seemed to carry with her, her stubborn fantasies of stardom?

Not long after Grace was gone the Carlsons came in. "We should have the spraying finished Monday," said Quentin, pulling his John Deere cap off to reveal hair soaked with sweat.

"It looks good," said Yale, "but we could use some more rain."

"I know," Fern said. They hadn't had a drop for two weeks.

"Oh, say," said Yale, "I think you might have an eagle on the property, or a big hawk. I saw something big flying around by that stand of trees on the south end. I didn't get a good look at it before it set down in the trees, but it was quite a sight."

"He says he saw it," said Quentin. "I didn't see a damn thing."

"It was there." Yale shoved his brother, and Fern scooted the two of them out before they started wrestling in the house.

Fern checked the roast and left the potatoes to cool. It was a lot of food, she realized, looking at it. She had never gotten accustomed to cooking for three instead of seven. In the back of her head she was still tailoring meals to the whole family, to Lloyd's dislike of gravy and Ursula's milk allergy. If it weren't for Morty's appetite she'd be throwing leftovers away by the pound.

She washed her hands, went to Zeke's room, and stood in the doorway. His head was turned away from her, looking out the window at the afternoon shadows. He turned and saw her and smiled.

She crossed to the bed and lay down beside him, taking his hand in hers. He put his other hand to her cheek and then ran it over her hair.

"How are you?" he asked, and she had to fight back tears.

_______

Jack would have been more nervous, he thought, than Harriet seemed to be. She and Mary Beth stood facing each other, left feet touching at the insoles, right feet behind. "Just push," Harriet told Mary Beth, "but not quite hard enough to snap me in half. First one to move her feet loses."

Mary Beth placed her hands against Harriet's side and leaned into her. Harriet bent back slightly, twisted her torso, and put pressure on Mary Beth's right. Mary Beth pushed back, and Harriet leaned to her own right. Mary Beth's back foot came up off the ground, and she stumbled forward, yelping.

Harriet put a hand to her side. "I think that's going to bruise," she said.

"Sorry," Mary Beth said.

"It's OK. I was just trying to illustrate a point. Being strong isn't enough to win every time. A lot of martial arts is learning to use your opponent's strength and movement against them. Brawling is one thing, but the point of learning this stuff is realizing that
anyone
is vulnerable."

"Except me," Mary Beth said.

"We don't know how invulnerable you are," Caroline called down. She sat high up in one of the aging maples overhead. "A car crusher or an incinerator might hurt you plenty. Don't think you shouldn't be careful just because you're strong."

Mary Beth shrugged but didn't say anything more. Harriet rubbed her side again and nodded at Jack. "Why don't you and Charlie try it?"

Charlie had stood close by throughout the lesson so far, imitating the moves Harriet taught them but otherwise seeming to be lost in his own head. Now he moved over to Jack and flashed him a grin as they positioned themselves. Something about Charlie had changed since the incident with the helmet; he was more confident, less jumpy. He hadn't said much about what had happened, but here he was with no hat, no helmet, exuding the same wary contentment that Jack's brother Lloyd had once carried around after he'd finally managed to seal the chicken coop against an infestation of rats.